


Better

by Numisma (InTheTatras)



Category: InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, Gen, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-04-08
Updated: 2005-04-08
Packaged: 2018-04-07 22:59:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4281174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InTheTatras/pseuds/Numisma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dying should have been enough.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Better

She had shielded him from the arrows, but they both still fell with a sickening thud, their limbs twisted like siblings’ limbs should never be. It was the last he remembered. The heat of her body, the piercing shock as death riddled its way through him, the wavering flux of sensation in his head, and his horror at what he’d done.

Dying should have been enough.

His face was still wet with tears when he’d closed his eyes forever.

Or what he had hoped would be forever.

To remain alive with his family’s blood, with Aneue’s blood, with everyone’s blood on his hands… it would be the gravest, most unforgivable sin he could fathom. How could one repent for committing such a massacre?

But his eyes opened. Someone must have thought, wrongfully so, that he had the desire to be anywhere but with his family.

Or perhaps someone had a taste for the most cruel kind of torture. The kind that attacks both the body and the soul.

Kohaku felt sick.

It was with weak limbs that he sat up, took in a deep, undeserving breath and scanned the room he’d found himself in. He knew in one quick glance he didn’t recognize this dark and shadowed place. He shuddered, a woozy feeling passing over him. A strange numbness was spreading through his body, the only sign of pain a sharp crick in his upper shoulder.

Then he coughed.

He coughed and coughed, blood and dirt and a few creatures of the earth spilling from his throat as his insides were purged. No amount of retching could remove the distinct metallic taste of death from his mouth. If anything, it made it worse.

“You’ve awakened, boy.”

He looked into the noble prince’s eerie, chilling gaze. “Kill me.”

“Death is for the weak.”

“I am weak, then.”

The man chuckled. A hand reached out and stroked the boy’s cheek, making him flinch. He withdrew from his touch, scooting as far back as he could go before hitting the wall. The man only crept closer.

He coughed some more, the rawness of his throat surfacing and overshadowing the ache in his shoulder. His eyes burned, but he couldn’t cry.

“Don’t you want to be a strong fighter, boy?” the man asked, his tongue darting out to lick his lips as they curled into a frightening smile. Kohaku shook his head from side to side. The action earned him little more than a cluck of chastisement. “Come, come, now. If you could have anything, what would it be?”

“Death. Give me death. I do not deserve to live.” Kohaku glanced around anxiously for his kusarigama. He didn’t understand why he was still alive, how he’d been nursed back to health, but one quick slash of the blade and his blood would join that of the other taijiya. It could mix with Aneue’s, and then things could be even.

He swallowed a painful lump as a chill ran over him. It was nowhere to be found.

“I cannot give you death,” cooed the man. The sight of his white teeth sickened the boy, and he squeezed his eyes shut and turned away, holding his breath. He stank of blood and dirt, and of… of death. He could smell it all over himself. He was a dirty, smudged little boy, covered in blood that didn’t belong to him, and yet did.

“But I can offer you something else. Something _better_.”

The man’s whisper curled and twisted through the air, through his defenses, and lured him out of his cringing little shell. Kohaku did not know what could possibly be better than death.

He opened his eyes wide and stared unflinchingly into those of the man who taunted him, and then growled, “Tell me.”


End file.
